Same as title. Does math exist and people find it or do people make it up?

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I think math is just a tool that we use, that helps us understand our surroundings. I think it is both, in that it exists, and that we created it, because we were able to recognize the patterns around us, and extrapolate from that to be able to do many things..

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yea what he said ^

isn't math supposed to be some universal language?

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yeah, math is a universal language (and to all of you who say the universal language is love....... go to hell)

Math does not exist on a tangible level but it does exist as ideas and thoughts.

If you're trying to prove that math does not exist just to get out of math class, try again

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math is a tool that man has created from the ability to reason. its just a type of language. but hell it sux who the hell cares about X equals skool suck @$$!

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I think math is answer to all univerisal problems
whenever reason and rational has failed, math has guided us to the next wave(the third wave, adam toffler)
without math, everything advancement we make, even the computers we use, wouldn't exist at all
i think math is a univerisal language of truth and discovery
it does suck though when studying in school, especially when professors suck at teaching the subject, but very important none the less.

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math makes my head go bing bing :exclaim:

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Man, math makes my head hurt. I have it last period of day and i'm all zoned out. :sleepy:

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actually.. I should clarify.. math exists, because we make it exist.

math doesn't exist anyway. We just have mathematical systems, that work for us.

Godel's Continuum Hypothesis explains this best.
Our math doesn't exist. We just have mathematical systems that we make work for ourselves. No one mathematical system is true.

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quote:

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Originally posted by tm11
actually.. I should clarify.. math exists, because we make it exist.

math doesn't exist anyway. We just have mathematical systems, that work for us.

Godel's Continuum Hypothesis explains this best.
Our math doesn't exist. We just have mathematical systems that we make work for ourselves. No one mathematical system is true.

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It's called a hypothesis, but no counter-example to Godel's continuum hypothesis (just curious, but what do you know of it?) have been produced...and there have been over 70 years to do it, yet we still have made many leaps in our understanding of mathematics. even with the knowledge that the math we do doesn't exist. The quote was an example of something that is commonly accepted by mathematicians today. Math does not exist. We make it exist. We create the mathematical systems that work for us. There is no one true mathematical system.

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"Existence Exists"

haha, just thought i'd throw that out there for the people who know what i'm talking about.

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quote:

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Originally posted by tm11
It's called a hypothesis, but no counter-example to Godel's continuum hypothesis (just curious, but what do you know of it?) have been produced...and there have been over 70 years to do it, yet we still have made many leaps in our understanding of mathematics. even with the knowledge that the math we do doesn't exist. The quote was an example of something that is commonly accepted by mathematicians today. Math does not exist. We make it exist. We create the mathematical systems that work for us. There is no one true mathematical system.

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no one true mathematical style? but math is universal everywhere. The concepts and logic that have developed over the years is taught to everyone. I dont know much about the continuum hypothesis, and if we make it exist, then what is it really? nonsense that becomes sensible? or is it sense from our nonsense? So now if math is created by us, and never existed, then virtually everything built on math doesnt' exist, because it was built on something that doesn't exist.
therefore, do we exist
haha, i know the last sentence has nothing to do with the argument
it just sounded funny

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on the contrary, math is an assigned study of the existing applications of pre-existing patterns that lie within the environment. This doesn't really need further elaborating but i feel like it so:

Much like names don't technically exist without our regarding them as truths, math doesn't exist unless we regard that as true. What i'm saying is, take dinosaurs for example...those prehistoric creatures existed we know, but did Dinosaurs exist? Well, yes in a matter of speaking dinosaurs if you could say they existed but only since we connect the moniker dinosaur with the creature itself. "Dinosaurs" don't exist if there was no assigning of it to an actual existing entity, since it does it is true. Math is the same, there are existing patterns and we generalize and call it math. Simple as that. We don't need to get into the argument of how nothing is real because our entire world is made of assumptions beginning with the fundamentals of language (if you don't know what i'm talking about don't ask cause it will be a long thread)

Math wasn't created by us, but was extrapolated by us. Everything is there, we just find it and extend upon it and label it more and more things that make people say "is this even real?" well yes it is.

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Ok, all you haters, stop hating on tm11, he is entirely correct. There is no universal mathematical system. I will post and example i am sure he is familiar with but here it goes:

1/2 + 1/2 = 1 this means that a half plus a half equals one, everone would say this is correct

but
if a baseball player hits 1 for 2 in two consecutive games his batting average is computed by

1/2 + 1/2 = 2/4 = 1/2 as he would be hitting 2 for 4 in two games, this is also correct proving that no mathematical system is totally universal

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i do believe man made up this thing we use called "math", but the ideas behind math and basics all rely upon universal logic. so in a sense, "math" did exist without human creation....

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ok, im seriously lost in this :stupid: u ppl noe waaaaay too much

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quote:

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Originally posted by heyitsdean
Ok, all you haters, stop hating on tm11, he is entirely correct. There is no universal mathematical system. I will post and example i am sure he is familiar with but here it goes:

1/2 + 1/2 = 1 this means that a half plus a half equals one, everone would say this is correct

but
if a baseball player hits 1 for 2 in two consecutive games his batting average is computed by

1/2 + 1/2 = 2/4 = 1/2 as he would be hitting 2 for 4 in two games, this is also correct proving that no mathematical system is totally universal

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